FF Disturbance

FF Disturbance is an experimental serif-styled alphabet. The design is Jeremy Tankard’s contribution to a well-discussed problem. Like many well-known typographers before him, Tankard investigated simplifying our alphabet’s structure, in order to enhance readability.

Our present writing system is a composite of two components: Roman upper case letters and medieval lowercase variants. FF Disturbance combines these upper and lowercase forms more harmoniously than our standard alphabet normally does. Tankard’s concept was to select the most extreme letter shapes – the best of both worlds – and put these into one alphabet.

“There is a theory that people only read what they want to read,” Tankard explains. “If good rhythm makes a face flow well, then the reading becomes much easier.” This fascination with typographic rhythm stems from a fascination with musical composition.

FF Disturbance also contains many ligatures that both add color to the typeface and assist in its flow and rhythmic patterning. Since uppercase forms are used for the characters B, D, and H, there are fewer ascenders, thus creating new word shapes. The increased ascenders of K and L, plus the use of the ligatures, recreate vertical movement within the type, counteracting the monotonous appearance of capitals within a block of text.

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